Thanksgiving Trip 2015 {part 1}

The Shank Family minus dad took a road trip to Florida for Thanksgiving this year. It was a great get-a-way! With all the wrestling practices, work, chores + packing...we all just really needed a vacation. It's too bad Kale wasn't able to join us. I think he needed the vacation most of all.

Morgan and I captured a selfie right before we hit the sack in preparation for our trip! She's too cute and why not?!

Since I was the one driving, I wasn't able to capture the kiddos in the truck as I usually do. BUT we did stop and take a selfie at a Starbucks when I desperately needed coffee.

We drove about 6 hours that day to Atlanta, GA where we stopped and Kale got us a hotel room. I seriously was not trying to drive the 15 hours by myself in one day. This was the plan and even though the kids were being really good, for Ryker, it was the best thing to do so I wouldn't pull my hair out driving down the road :)

This was a sweet moment I caught {thankfully} of the kids tearing apart one of the beds. They actually seem to LIKE that they were in a hotel room! Or ... maybe it was that I didn't really mind if they wrestled and messed the bed up. Either way...too cute!

We had a little fun. Hit the pool and the gym {I know right!} We woke up the next day and had an amazing breakfast {not really} and were able to hit the road again with fresh faces and minds.

Before leaving out to complete our trip to Florida, I decided to show the kids this "Stone Mountain". It was time for them to see this place in person. They didn't believe me... Now they do! It was fun. There was a lady there who was supposed to snap "a" photo but ended up taking like 20. I love that she did that because it captured how hard it is to take a group pic when you have a 1 year old, 4 year old and 2 older kids!

let the fun begin!

~ Our Shank Family

ROAK #1 2015

ROAK #1 was from Mom. I was walking into Walmart with a grocery list of my own and as I was walking in these kids asked me if I wanted to help The Dream Center? I said SURE! They then handed me a list of food items.

I took the list of food items and looked it over as I was walking into the produce department. For a minute I stopped and just thought to myself:

"Wow. Ya never know how blessed you are until you realize these kids wouldn't have a nice Thanksgiving Dinner without the donations from the Community"

"Here I am splurging on food, crafty yummy food that is sort of expensive and these kids just want to enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner"

"Gosh I feel like a schmuck"

"I seriously feel like I take what I have for granted!"

"I need to get better at giving instead of wanting all the time"

"I'm a schmuck"!

I then gathered myself together. Got 1 or more of everything on this grocery list and remembered not to cheap their food with a bunch of generic brands. I bought Thanksgiving foods on the list that I would buy for my own family.

Talk about a blessing, a lesson and a heartache all at one time.

I then went home, sat my kids down at the kitchen table and told them all about the story. What happened. How I felt. {I left out the word schmuck and replaced it with ungrateful} and their eyes were big. They heard me loud and clear. Did it change their ungratefulness? Not a whole lot but I think over time if we were to do this enough while making our children EARN what they "want" most of the time, they may just turn out to have big hearts one day. And teach their children the value of giving.

~ Our Shank Family

Week 6

Week 6 has come to an end and I couldn't be more excited with the progress while we've been gone on vacation!! I came home to the painted walls, new front door and garage door and the flooring is being installed!! I mean seriously!!

The house is starting to come together. I can envision everything so easily now. Oh man I can't even express my excitement!

The Cabinets arrived on time. AND so many other things!!

Here are a few pics I took yesterday while over at the house:

WE. ARE. SO. EXCITED! I just cannot wait until we can move in a decorate. I know these posts may or may not be getting on your nerves by now but for memories sake..I'm documenting each week!


~ Our Shank Family

Happy #4 Morgan Shank

Morgan had several different requests for her Birthday. We actually fulfilled them all because she's 4 and what do 4 year old's want? Food. An awesome toy. And cake!

For Lunch we took her to Q'Doba. Her request.

Then we went home and made a cake with homemade icing. Gosh I love this icing! Recipe here.

After dinner we let her blow out her candles and open presents. This girl was in Heaven!!

~ Our Shank Family

Week 5

The house is coming along great. We've made a ton of final decisions regarding trim, paint colors, details regarding faux fireplace and much more.

The idea I gave the contractors:

Trim Idea

The doors I want installed throughout home

Lovely Paint Colors! It's time for some color! I took away the color far left though. Way too dark.

We have no ETA on our cabinets and if we don't get one here soon we will be at another stand still.

We've already hit one stand-still with mud on the drywall. We had no heat on at the house and the mud wouldn't dry. Too humid? Too wet and rainy? Not sure. So we scheduled for our heat (gas heat) to be turned on and that didn't happen until 4 days later. Finally last Friday they came on out and hooked us up.

Now the mud is dry and they were able to lay the second coat on. Sanding is going on today and paint will be mixed this weekend!!! And we are stoked.

Other projects are coming along smoothly too! They keep teasing us about painting ourselves...NO! You couldn't pay me to paint a house again. I think Kale would agree!

I had to go to the house yesterday to tell our contractor what color and where we wanted that color. I REALLY hope my decisions will look good. As I mentioned before, I'm definitely no interior designer and everything I got came from pinterest. I just guessed and chose what color and where.

He wrote the notes on the paper I printed out and told me NO CHANGES! Ha. I've made way too many I suppose :) He gave me 24 hrs to make changes and that's it. I decided NOT to think about it at all. I know I will love it.

We are excited but at the same time, we didn't think things would take so long. So, we are just keeping our fingers crossed that things run smoothly and we can move in sooner than later. We are guessing we won't be in our new home before we leave out for our renewal followed by Christmas Vacation. We won't return until after the new year so...We are thankful and grateful anyway!


~ Our Shank Family

Date Night

 

Date night is NOT something we get very often anymore. Kale and I have both been up to our necks in work, kids, wrestling practice, birthdays, working out on the property, working out butts off in our current home, packing for vacation and just life itself. While this is all great and all positive wonderful things...we have been lacking in the "get away and get some fresh air".

So, Kale called me from work and said set up a date night. I was actually shocked because its been a long time since we've gone out alone without any kids. I was excited. I went and bought a new scarf and some new shoes. I did!

Here's to nearly 5 years of marriage and all that comes with!

We hit Zuki which is a broken record here on the blog. But it's my favorite place and he knows that!

Then we went downtown Haynies Corner for a bit and checked out a few different places before settling in at this little corner bar Bokeh Lounge. Love this place. They always have a great live band. We really enjoyed ourselves. So glad we got a good date night in before everything gets crazy for the Holidays!

Week 4

Week 4 is exciting but we know there is so much left to do. We were hoping for a 5 week turn-around but Kale and I have made SO many changes to hold things up. I mean, we can't go back and do things after everything has been done so we figured why not just get it done now!

A few things we added:

A Faux Fireplace 

I really needed this. I wanted a place to hang stockings and secretly I'm going to miss my enormous fireplace at our current home. While this will be nothing like the one we have now it will still be a great little addition

A seating/hanging area in foyer

Even the tiniest of spaces can still be useful. I decided to add a small custom build in right as we come into the door from garage. One of my biggest pet peeves is a messy counter. Well, for 5 years my husband has come in, put his hat, keys, wallet, belt and knife pack on the kitchen counter. I said no more and added this nifty little area just for him. We don't have nearly this much space but it will work for what we need.

A Laundry Room in Basement

 I WISH my little laundry area could be this cool! But unfortunately it won't be. This is just an idea I had for one off pinterest. Side by side with a cabinet and bar for hanging clothes :) Clean and simple. We originally were going to do something a little nicer in the garage but found out they couldn't put anything through the brick wall. At least they recommended against it. Also with freezing temps...this was the best way to do this. I will be able to do laundry while watching kiddos in rec room.

Upstairs living area {faux fireplace}

Other side of upstairs living room. On right is front door, small coat closet to the left of door then the big opening beside is is my new office space.

Kitchen

Hallway to bathroom, kids rooms and our bedroom.

We've added and changed a ton of other things as well. Door widths because the house was old and we would have had to purchase custom doors. That gets really expensive and we said no. Change the width of the doors instead. Just small odds and ends.

This week Kale also decided it was time to start on Colten's bedroom and bathroom as well.

This is the rec room. Basically storage space right now

This is inside Colten's room. Those pipes will be moved. Walls will go up. Geeze what a mess!

Kale ripping apart the bathroom you see through the opening. It's TINY! But it works for what we need it for!

My laundry space

What a crazy journey. Watching things progress. We have a ways to go! Drywallers are there this week and hopefully as soon as they are done we can get to finishing materials :)!

~ Our Shank Family